Really? Deimos, or Tiger attacking an M2? 8 PPG, or even "better" 8 ISR?If the ship has heavy main guns and weak turret coverage - it's intended to be used against larger ships, not smaller, and vice versa.
Could you, please, show me a single M6 with Turret instead of main guns? ( not the Paranid Nemesis, it´s quite crappy otherwise, and has only x6 guns in front turret! ).M7 with front turrent instead of main guns is a big no-no for player's ship IMHO - I've tried it, and they behave just like an overgrown M6. Thicker shields, same hitting power.
Behaiving like an M6? M6 in vanilla X3 were the ships i´d hoped for to get to when i first played, and i flew one of them exactly for 1 minute, before i dumped it - any m3+ could do a better job. M6 in XRM, aside from Split super agile ships, fly exactly how i´d would imagine a fast and manouverable ship would fly ( a ship class ment to kill fighters, btw, it´s X3 canon, look it up ).
Having main guns in heavy ships means performing some crazy stunts flying it, if you want to survive, - definetly not a way to fly a Frigate, and above...
Shrike is the only example in XRM that comes close to "gunship" - heavy front assault guns ( the pirate version has them even in side turrets ). Both crappy constuctor designs, they not only lack enough energy for a half way prolonged fight ( which is quite ok concerning the whole lore ), but also carry a taskgroup with it, even an M6 is doackable. Tell me, how is a mini Carrier, actually supposed to "support" task groups, is such a multi purpose ship, that can´t even hold against a single light M6 on it´s own? Not all battles, or rather fights, are for fleets - Shrike type ships are not capable to hit a thing in game.
Let´s see: So what is it then that is supposed to attack M6? A super large and bulky M2? A fighter that should flee seeing those, actually, or a bomber, that is supposed to attack huge ship, actually, not smaller craft, since, at least in XRM-AP, a salvo would simply kill any M6 right away - jus tlike this, no manouvering is gonna save it ).The targets for the light frigate are M7M and M7C, not corvettes.
M7M? Well, i don´t think any ship in this game can take on M7M, sorry. Not in a small fleet, not with fighter support - those ships are nuts ( i also suppose, that they get the same crazy "shoot all missiles we´ve got in one salvo" panik, when they are in danger behaiviour, and that´s why an encounter with them at close quoters, where they should not be in a favorable position, are mostly very uncool, if not plain lethal ).
M7C as target are valid, but Shrike, or Deimos, are M7C themselfs, actually, since they are carriers too. Carrier vs. Carrier? Oh, well...
So what is a "light" M6 exactly for? M6 are anti fighter support ships, see above. Heavier M6 should be able, and are, to some degree, capable in taking out a Pirate, or a Xenon raid ( that said, OOS it can get tricky ).No one goes after fighters in light M6.
Last, but not least: any ship that has main guns actually shows a "fighter behaviour" ( hit&run ). And you can hit only bigger targets with gunns from bigger ships ( unless it´s ISR, 1700 m/s speed rules, but the range is crappy ), which shows us a following scenario in vanilla XRM:
- a Deimos, for example, closing in on a Titan, shoots couple of volleys
- starts evasive manouver ( with bones it can, otherwise "ramming speed"! )
gets pounded meanwhile, while not able to hit it´s main target, the M2, -cause of lack of a front turret
- thank to massive 6 Gj shilds it´s still alive, goes for the second run
- same picture, but this time it´s pretty much dead - shild regen ain´t the best, it´s not a destroyer, and all it has accomplished was to "distract" the enemy M2.
Result: all it´s fighters are stranded, if survived, the M6 can fly home alone. Over 60 mio. damage to your pocked, more with weapons/software. If you imagine a number of "crew" dead, compared to a losss of a couple of fighters, there is no other word then Pyrrhic Victory that comes to my mind.
P.S: I don´t want to ruin the fun for pepole who like main guns for the player ship. There should always be such a choice in game, but for overal balance i think main guns must go entirely.